El silencio de la ciudad blanca

This Spanish thriller is centred on the hunt for a serial killer; each time he strikes he kills two people; one male one female. Each pair of victims is from a wealthy family and five years older than the previous pair. His crimes mirror those that happened twenty years previously; the man accused of those crimes is in prison but is due to be released soon. Policeman Unai López de Ayala, a skilled profiler, is put in charge of the case; his first since returning to work after the death of his wife. He works alongside younger female officer Estíbaliz Ruiz de Gauna.

I enjoyed this film although in the already crowded serial killer genre it doesn't feel enormously original. There are some nice ideas such as there being pairs of victims each time and a disturbing yet novel method of murder. We are told the identity of the killer, and their connection to somebody close to our protagonist fairly early on so there isn't really a mystery about who is doing it; just a question of why, and how they will ultimately be stopped. I liked our two investigators; Javier Rey and Aura Garrido impress in these roles. The rest of the cast are pretty solid too. Everything looks good with impressive locations; both indoors and outside. Overall a decent enough addition to the genre; not a must see but still worth a watch... just don't expect it to be up there with 'The Silence of the Lambs'.

These comments are based on watching the film in Spanish with English subtitles.

Whoever edited this movie should be fired immediately. What could have been a decent Da Vinci-style mystery was turned into a mess due to bad direction or bad editing or both.

To explain, you barely know what is going on or why. It appears some very key scenes were deleted which caused the story to be disjointed. Too often you would see a police at a suspect's house but you never saw the information or clue that led them there. One scene the police are looking at a newspaper clipping, next they are knocking down doors without explaining what they saw or why. There are many illiogicla time jumps, such as jogging in the middle of the night and somehow it is bright sunlight and they are jogging.

There is a movie somewhere hidden in this if you can decipher the mess.

Wasted running & chasing leading to pointless results. Producing not 1 clue or evidence until the last 30 minutes doesn't make this a thriller!

This is the adaptation of the first book of a trilogy. I think that people who have not read the books will have some trouble to follow the film. It is a very weak and dissapointing adapation which leaves outside some of the best things of the books: for example, the grandfather, one of the greatest carachters, only appears in one or two very brief scenes. The relation between Unai and Alba does not translate well to the screen. The rich traditional background you have in the book comes very superficial here, and so happens with the investigation itself. Also, having the "big mistery" revealed 20 minutes into the film does not help.

Generally all (acting, music, script...) is quite forgettable and superficial and lacks the magic the books have. In my opinion, it could (and should) have been made into a TV series, not into a movie.

I've noticed that the terrible reviews seem to come from people watching the dubbed version of films on Netflix. The lazy or stupid who cannot read subtitles have no clue as to the true storytelling and acting presented to them.

This is no Silence Of The Lambs, but well worth of watching if one can actually read subtitles while viewing.